Defining Abnormality / Mood Disorders - Assignment Example

Psychology First, Middle Initial (s), Last Affiliation Psychology Human behavior can be described as a wide range of various activities exhibited or characterized by a human being. They are mostly characterized or influenced by attitude, culture, ethics, values, emotions or genetics. It is categorized into normal and abnormal behaviors (Barondes, 1998). The terms normal and abnormal human behaviors are used to distinguish different characters of the human beings, thus enhancing communication and interaction among humans (Butcher, Hooley & Mineka, 2014).

This is because humans are able to understand each other with their mental capabilities. The Normal human behavior is termed as the average or common mental status of a human being exhibited by in their behaviors. Abnormal human behavior is defined as the behavioral characters that have been noted to be deviating from the expected normal behavior (Alloy & Abramson, 1979). Literary, societies have drawn an invisible line of defining the two terms. Normal human behavior is the accepted characters while abnormal human behaviors are the unaccepted behaviors.

ExampleExcessive drinking of alcohol is an example of a problematic human behavior. It is categorized under a maladaptive or atypical human behavior. Thai is because the behavior exhibited by an individual is considered to be potentially harmful to a person or others. It is also a behavior that is unwanted by the society. It is violating the societal standards (Jamison, 1995). Excessive consumption of alcohol causes physical violence, emotional discomfort, social impairment and the effect of psychotic reality impairment.

All the above effects of alcohol are violating and deviating from the norm of the society, therefore, it is considered to be a problematic behavior. Mood episode is described as a continuous, pervasive emotional disturbance. Depression is a form of a mood episode. It is described as the patterns of mood and attitude disturbance that are observed through duration of time. In most of the cases, depression can lead to suicidal thoughts. An example is an individual who has lost a job and has no way of finding a living for the family.

The individual’s children are spending nights without food. This makes life to be meaningless to a person, a situation which can be termed as a melancholic feature. This in-turn makes the person to think of committing suicide due to depression. Even with the advanced Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) criteria, there is no distinct criterion for identifying the mental disorders; the signs are almost similar giving the opportunity for the criteria to give a common language for communication.

Bipolar I Disorder is a type of disorder I which an individual has a period of depression turning out to be either extremely sad or happy. An example is a teenager facing an early pregnancy problem. She is always depressed with the feeling of either being happy that she has a child, or she is sad that the windows for her future has been closed. The individual is always faced with manic episodes whenever she thinks about it. The time frame for the episode is not known but to many, it stops when she becomes happily married in life.

ReferencesButcher, J. N., Hooley, J. M., & Mineka, S. M. (2014). Abnormal psychology (16th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.Alloy, L., & Abramson, L. (1979). Judgment of contingency in depressed and non-depressed students: Sadder but wiser? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 108(4), 441–485.Barondes, S. H. (1998). Mood genes: Hunting for origins of mania and depression. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Jamison, K. (1995). Manic-depressive illness and creativity. Scientific American, 272(2), 62–67.